John Kasich’s lament

WHEN historians look back at the earthquake that shook American politics in 2016, two books deserve recognition as important early warnings. The first, “Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam, was published way back in 2000. With the prescience of a ranch-hound growling at a far-off tremor, Mr Putnam, a political scientist, reported that Americans were living increasingly solitary lives, slumped in front of televisions or surfing the internet, rather than competing in bowling leagues or volunteering for such civic groups as the Knights of Columbus.

The second book, clanging like a ranch-bell as the first tremors arrived, was “The Big Sort: Why The Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart” by Bill Bishop. Published in 2008, this reported that when Americans emerge, blinking, from their TV dens they increasingly inhabit communities which share their partisan, religious or cultural views. In the presidential election of 1976, some 27% of Americans lived in “landslide counties” which Jimmy Carter either won or lost by at least 20 percentage points. By 2004, when George Bush narrowly won re-election, 48% of counties saw landslides.

Now comes a third book which seeks, in effect, to synthesise the lessons of the first two. It is written by John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio and the last presidential primary contender to concede defeat as Donald Trump seized his party’s nomination. The new work, “Two Paths: America Divided or United”, reflects Mr Kasich’s image as a folksy blue-collar conservative with a conscience. It could be summarised in a single, faith-tinged injunction: “Love your neighbour.”

The 24-hour news cycle being what it is, the book has mostly been parsed for clues as to whether Mr Kasich might run for president in 2020, especially if Mr Trump does not seek a second term. Mr Kasich, a former congressman and Fox News TV host, has coyly told interviewers: “You don’t close the door on anything.” In truth, Mr Kasich has probably had his moment. He won one state in the presidential primaries, his own. Many Republicans cannot abide the way he casts hardline opponents as unChristian—Mr Kasich likes to say that when politicians die, St Peter will ask what they did for the poor, not how they shrank government.

Still, Mr Kasich’s book matters, in part as a reassuringly human account of life at the epicentre of a political quake. He describes taking part in presidential-primary debates in which rivals “wallowed in the mud, lied, called each other liars, and disparaged each other’s character.” Up under the TV lights, he reports, “It was just nuts.” He sounds equally human when watching rivals endorse Mr Trump, a man they had previously called “utterly amoral” and a “cancer” on conservatism. Mr Kasich, normally a gruff sort, tactfully calls this surrender “surprising”.

Alas, “Two Paths” matters even more because it fails in its stated aim: to show how America can be united. The son of a postman from small town in Pennsylvania, Mr Kasich frets that Americans have “fallen out of the habit of caring for one another”, instead living with their heads down and expecting far-off government leaders to solve such problems as the opiate addictions ravaging Middle America. To explain why democracy feels gridlocked, Mr Kasich points to partisans who now consume political news like a “hobby”, and who use primary elections to punish legislators who cross party lines.

The problem is that solving the “Bowling Alone” crisis, even if it can be done, may not fix the “Big Sort” problem. When Americans debate such issues as government welfare, it is not enough for them to love their neighbours. The larger challenge is to love compatriots who are not their neighbours. When polled on such issues as immigration, gun rights, climate change or welfare for the poor, Trump-voting rural America and Democratic-leaning cities and inner suburbs sound like two different countries. Worse, the two Americas increasingly do not know or like each other—a divide made worse by Mr Trump, who depicts cities as hellholes of dysfunction, stalked by murderous immigrants.

In an interview, Mr Kasich’s solution is to talk about questions of “common humanity” that trouble all Americans: he cites children who arrive hungry at school, drug addiction and human trafficking. He wants to see more voluntary civic actions, like mentoring young people, donating to food banks, or shaming employers into keeping jobs in America.

Civic-minded, but segregated

In the meantime, gulfs grow wider. In 2016, fully 60% of voters lived in landslide counties that went for Mr Trump or Hillary Clinton by a 20-point margin. Damagingly for Mr Kasich’s love-conquers-all thesis, any reporter who covered last year’s election can also testify that Mr Trump’s divisive rhetoric created a powerful sense of community among his followers. It is true that Trump rallies were darkly angry festivals of fear-mongering about The Other. But seen another way, enthusiastic citizens were swept up in a common cause as rarely before. In their “Make America Great Again” hats and “Trump That Bitch” T-shirts, the faithful were not bowling alone. Today the left is seeing a wave of civic activism and energy, inspired by rage and disgust at President Trump.

Pushed on this paradox, Mr Kasich is honest enough to say that America faces a “cultural problem” that will not be solved overnight. Political parties see profit in gerrymandering districts to make them super-safe, he sighs. The media saw profit in covering Mr Trump’s worst excesses. He chides religious leaders in the “faith business” for sowing divisions. Remarkably, he criticises the public too, who “want to be reinforced in their beliefs”, and so choose to inhabit partisan bubbles and forward fake news items without compunction. Fixing America is “on us”, writes Mr Kasich, urging citizens to take more responsibility and shun strongmen vowing to solve all problems. But what happens when there is no American “us” any more? To that, he offers no answer.